Back in 2021, Kristina Wong—a comedian and performance artist and community activist—fell in love with her local food bank. It was a nontraditional food bank, in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, and it operated like a grocery store. It looked, according to LAist, “like the low-key love child of a bodega and a Trader Joe’s.” Wong began documenting the new relationship, as one does with a new relationship, on Instagram. She also found herself studying up on food insecurity in America. That’s all swirled into a new solo show (copresented here by Portland Center Stage and Boom Arts) that takes the rom-com as its organizing conceit and adds comic riffs on pop songs; think “Don’t Stop at Feeding” to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Mythic Welfare Queen” to the tune of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” The songs are performed karaoke-style, the lyrics displayed on screens, so do your neighbor a favor and prep those pipes beforehand. —Rebecca Jacobson

Livestock, babies, plastic chairs, motorcycles, seaside benches, wrenches—all the things in Portland artist Lukas Kubeja’s camera roll make up his latest show of oil paintings. As a title, Diary might land flat. But the onus here is on the modern concept of a personal archive, or the incessant iPhone images we use to verify that something, anything, everything in our lives has actually happened. Translating these tender but offhand snapshots into large-scale paintings pinpoints the ways our personal archives are both everything and nothing. Friday, June 5, Kaya Noteboom will read from her essay that accompanies the show from 6:30–8pm. —Matthew Trueherz

The film version of this ABBA jukebox musical might be most valued for bringing Pierce Brosnan—a.k.a. Remington Steele, James Bond, and People’s 2001 Sexiest Man Alive—back down to earth. For all his dashing looks, the man cannot sing. Expect the vocal quality to be a little higher for this touring Broadway show, which finds a young bride-to-be secretly inviting her three possible dads from her mom’s “Dancing Queen” era to the wedding. Antics ensue. At least a “Lay All Your Love on Me”–soundtracked bachelor party is a lot more fun than a boring old paternity test. —Margaret Seiler

With more than 70 features and shorts from around the world, this 11th annual event is a celebration of all things spooky-scary, and sometimes silly—see Friday’s late-night feature Friday the 69th, a period piece in which the fictional director of porn classic One Flew Over the Cuckold’s Chest decides to make a vacationing-coeds slasher flick with porn star Rock Hardigan. My Bloody Valentine director George Mihalka will be at the Hollywood Thursday for a 45th anniversary screening of his 1981 horror classic and at Movie Madness Saturday afternoon for an interactive workshop (specially ticketed and not part of the festival pass). Check the website for more filmmaker Q&As, pre-funks, after-parties, and music performances, plus streaming options for those who can’t attend. —MS

The city’s indie bookshops band together to organize this mad dash of literary events each year, complete with its own bookstore bingo game. The “week”—slightly longer than its name implies—is a great reason to loiter at your favorite shops. But if you need a better excuse, highlights include Jeff VanderMeer at Parallel Worlds (June 4); Ana Velez at Linda Letra Bilingual Books (June 6); a Portland Zine Meetup at Rose City Book Pub (June 11); and a “minicon” hosted by Books with Pictures (June 13). All of it runs up to the Rose City Book & Paper Fair (10am–5pm Saturday & Sunday, June 13 & 14) at the DoubleTree in the Lloyd neighborhood. It’s $5 to get in, but free with a filled-out bingo card. —MT

Following a divorce, Sharon, a middle-aged Iowa woman, rents out a room in her house. She needs help with the rent, but, as they always do, the roommate gives Sharon more than she bargained for. It turns out that Robyn, a woman of a similar age, is running from a life of crime in New York, and the unlikely pair become supports to each other through big life changes. Written by Jen Silverman, The Roommate had a critically acclaimed Broadway run in 2024 (starring Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone). Now, Portland’s Profile Theatre is having its own swing at it, with Jamie M. Rea directing. —MT

The gallery describes Picton’s artworks as “hand-cut sculptural assemblages,” and it’s true that the pieces in A Deeper Picture aren’t exactly collages. What they are is a bona fide trip. Shockingly intricate cutouts layer and morph art-historical images and film stills into cultural wormholes. Tarkovsky, Fellini, Brueghel, and Leonardo da Vinci are all in play, laced together in big, razor-cut patterns that somehow blur so many iconic images softly together. —MT

Adam Friedland is 39 years old but is essentially the internet’s favorite 13-year-old in a suit. Or at least that’s the air he projects. The sly notion that he knows more than he’s letting on is what keeps people coming to his podcast, The Adam Friedland Show. It’s a mix of interviews with rappers the white, Jewish host idolized growing up in Santa Monica (RZA and 2 Chainz recently) but also with political figures (Ilhan Omar, Zohran Mamdani, Gavin Newsom) and has proven an effective way to expand the latter’s audience. —MT

Oregon Ballet Theatre closes out its season with a quartet of one-act ballets. Grounding the program is a piece choreographed by OBT artistic director Dani Rowe and featuring principal dancers Brian Simcoe and Carly Wheaton, both retiring from the company. Other pieces offer an exciting chance to glimpse work by professional dancers who are also up-and-coming choreographers, the same path traced by Rowe. The newness means details are somewhat slim: A piece by San Francisco Ballet corps member Davide Occhipinti “bends light into motion,” per OBT, while another by OBT company dancer Lauren Flower “crafts movement that lingers in the mind.” The last work is “Uncertain Growth,” choreographed last year by former company dancer Ben Youngstone. —RJ

PICA’s giant warehouse space in Northeast Portland is constantly overwhelmed with spontaneous and strange beauty, most of which fits roughly into genres of performance art, dance, theater, and music. Though not officially programmed by PICA, the Risk/Reward Festival fits wonderfully into its host. Now in its 18th year, the fest is devoted to new and experimental works. Five 20-minute pieces are grouped into a mainstage package, performed back-to-back three nights in a row. Some highlights: an absurdist dance piece having to do with jellyfish life cycles, something revolving around a telephone switchboard, and a ballet-adjacent performance exploring gender expression. Immersive installations await elsewhere in the venue. And a full-length performance on Thursday and Sunday of Sarah K. Finn’s lecture-performance The Right Thing To Be Doing bookends the festival, blurring an ecology conference into a one-woman show about climate and connection. —MT

Historic mess, check. Taylor Hodges, founder of Queer Nourish—a group that puts on educational events and does project and strategic planning—hosts this casual chat exploring the lives and loves of lesbians of yore. Hodges is keeping the list under wraps until showtime, but says it’ll span from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. Anne Lister? Josephine Baker? Frida Kahlo? We’ll have to wait and see. —RJ

Bike Play is a play that unfolds over the course of a bike ride, with the audience (that’s you) pedaling from scene to scene. It’s a beloved Pedalpalooza tradition now in its 17th year, and this time it’s a medieval tale about a peasant attempting to woo a noble as their kingdom teeters toward war. It’s a loop ride, starting and ending at Oregon Park. BYO bike. Period-inspired costumes encouraged; bike jousting guaranteed. —RJ

Did anyone watch the 1985 Robert Zemeckis time-travel blockbuster and think, “What if Biff sang? And danced?” Apparently, the answer is yes. While this recent musical’s creators splurged to include a handful of decades-spanning pop hits from the movie soundtrack (“Earth Angel,” “Johnny B. Goode,” and a double dose of Huey Lewis), most songs were written for the stage, so don’t expect the sing-along frenzy of Mamma Mia!, which plays on the same stage two weeks before. Watch for a block party with DeLoreans and an ’80s costume contest next to the Keller before the opening-night show. —MS

Poison Waters emcees the ribbon-cutting for downtown’s Darcelle XV Plaza, formerly known as O'Bryant Square, with speakers including friends and family of the legendary drag queen and Old Town cabaret owner, who died in 2023 at age 92. The ceremony starts at noon, with music beforehand from the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus. (The plaza will then be closed for a week for finishing touches before a grand opening on June 25.) —MS

After an epic Exploding Whale Night a few years ago celebrated a major event in Oregon history, the baseball team has found another animal to blow up. (We are assured that no actual birds will be harmed.) This time, it's to commemorate the dove whose life was cut short by a pitch from Diamondbacks hurler Randy Johnson, a.k.a. the Big Unit, during a spring training game in 2001. The batter thought he was being pranked and that Johnson had tossed a trick ball that blew up. Then the feathers started to fall.

Brittany Shyne’s 2025 documentary, Seeds, which won the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, is the centerpiece of this Juneteenth celebration. The film highlights racial inequities in the already extremely difficult business of modern American farming, following three families of intergenerational Black farmers and illustrating the distinct hardships they face in gorgeous black and white cinematography. Filmmaker and writer Kalimah Abioto will host a panel after the screening, with real estate developer Anyeley Hallová, farmer Mirabai Collins, and 8 Seconds Rodeo founder Ivan McClellan. Also look out for goods from local Black-owned farms in the lobby. —MT

Kokoroko has good vibes to spare. The London septet blends influences of funk and the Ghanaian genre highlife into a swaying wash of horns and vocal harmonies that seem to wind endlessly around a percussive rhythm. —MT

Named for the woman who first organized a Juneteenth celebration in Oregon, the Clara Peoples Freedom Trail Parade kicks off this day-long festival. The parade launches from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary at 11am. Bands, floats, dance teams, drill teams, car clubs, motorcycle clubs, school and youth groups, and more will march the party nearly two miles south landing at Lillis-Albina Park, where vendors set up around a stage hosting live music and guest speakers. —MT

Hanging on for eight seconds is the goal of most rodeos. But Portland-based photojournalist Ivan McClellan had a deeper goal when launching his own rodeo: continuing the legacy of Black cowboy culture. The annual event kicked off in 2023, stemming from a series of photographs and a book McClellan published of Black cowboys throughout the US, which subvert the fabricated mythos of a whitewashed Western culture. —MT 

So much ink will be spilled across venues throughout the city over this long weekend. The multiday Bout—a slam poetry competition—serves as the Bigfoot Poetry Festival’s main event. At least if slam poetry competitions are your thing. But the lineup also features a heaping handful of themed open mics. Several are organized around identity, celebrating Black poets, young poets, trans and nonbinary poets, Latinx and Indigenous poets. There is also an erotic poetry open mic, another on mental health, and another for poets in drag. This is still nowhere near a complete list of the festival’s events…. —MT

The long-running multicultural food and music fest, always held the last weekend of June, is going back to its roots this year with classic Portland hip-hop acts Cool Nutz, Vursatyl, and Mic Capes serving as headliners on Saturday, while Aléa Lorén and Company take the stage for soulful Sunday set. Things kick off with a parade down NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Saturday at 11am.

Halkias’s second Netflix special is due out sometime this year. As the prolific podcaster and actor (he played a cop in Bugonia and starred in the 2024 comedy Let’s Start a Cult) shared on Instagram, it was delayed because he broke his arm while falling off a scooter. A fan said hello while making a U-turn and cutting him off. At the same moment, the wind caught Halkias’s hat and a reflex took his hand off the bar, planting the other swiftly into the pavement with a crunch. —MT

What better way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon than practicing the fiber arts as the Dashwood sisters dart about Devonshire? Among the best Austen adaptations, the 1995 Ang Lee film—with its Oscar-winning screenplay by Emma Thompson—is an astute comedy with heart. Thompson stars alongside Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman. The Tomorrow Theater keeps the lights on low for these monthly Crafternoon screenings, helping you to see your knitting. But should you mess it up, staff from yarn shop/dye studio Ritual Dyes will be on hand to help. —RJ

The Portland Bangers host the men’s team of Bigfoot FC (from Maple Valley, Washington) at 4pm, and sister team the Cherry Bombs face the Bigfoot women at 7pm. For the Cherry Bombs, it's the final game of their inaugural season, one complete with pink smoke, Portland Opera performances, and what may be the sporting world's best-dressed mascot, Mary T. Cherry. (Games ticketed separately.)